Intel on Monday announced a new family of powerful server and workstation products aimed at the supercomputing and high-performance compute (HPC) segments that will be branded Xeon Phi.

The chip giant said at the International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg, Germany that future processors that incorporate the company's Many Integrated Core (MIC) architecturewhich evolved from an attempt to develop an x86-based graphics processor code named Larrabee several years agowill be part of the Xeon Phi lineup.

Formerly code named Knight's Corner, the first Xeon Phi coprocessor will be made available this year, Intel said. The 22-nanometer, x86-compatible chip will have more than 50 cores, a minimum of 8GB of GDDR5 memory, and support PCIe form factors.

Intel is working with supercomputer specialist Cray in rolling out its new product line but has actually already built a test system that wound up 150th on the recently released global Top500 supercomputer list.

"We are very excited to announce that our next-generation supercomputer code named 'Cascade' will be available with the Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors, giving Cray customers the ability to push the limits of research and discovery," said Peg Williams, Cray's senior vice president of high performance computing systems, in a statement.

"Our Cascade system will feature some of the most advanced and highly innovative HPC technologies ever put into a Cray supercomputer. Combining these features with industry-leading Intel Xeon processors and the new Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors will result in a very compelling system for HPC centers around the world," she added.

The Global Top500 Supercomputer list released this week featured 372 systems that are powered by Intel processors, nearly 75 percent of the total. But Intel has been feeling some pressure in the HPC market from heterogeneous computing solutions that combine the linear processing power of CPUs with the parallel processing of GPUs made by companies like Nvidia.

Intel believes Xeon Phi is a step in the direction towards offering its own single-vendor heterogeneous solution, though Cray chief executive Peter Ungaro told The Wall Street Journal that the MIC architecture "has the potential to surpass GPUs, but I wouldn't make that call yet."

About the Author

Damon Poeter got his start in journalism working for the English-language daily newspaper The Nation in Bangkok, Thailand. He covered everything from local news to sports and entertainment before settling on technology in the mid-2000s. Prior to joining PCMag, Damon worked at CRN and the Gilroy Dispatch. He has also written for the San Francisco Ch... See Full Bio

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